Patrick Smith
Volume 48 No 12
Paris,
Thursday
Dear Confidentialers,
Here in the city of light, the most dramatic news about last week's G8 summit in Heiligendamm was the release on the internet of a video showing France's new President Nicolas Sarkozy holding a press...
Patrick Smith
20 May 2007
Shangcheng Road
Pu Dong
China
Dear Confidentialers,
It's been a week of supersonic statistics and global asymmetry here in Shanghai, which this week hosted one of the most successful annual meetings of the African Development Bank (AfDB) to...
Patrick Smith
Luxembourg Gardens
Paris,
France
Dear Confidentialers,
After sending another Africa Confidential to the printers in the smallish hours of Thursday morning, I jumped on a Eurostar on a mission to see President-elect Nicolas Sarkozy spend an uncomfortable...
Patrick Smith
The Occidental Grill
Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington DC
Dear Confidentialers,
Viewed from the reassuringly stolid interior of the Occidental Grill 'Where statesmen dine', it says on the door Washington could be mistaken for a benign provincial city...
Patrick Smith
BBC Studios
Millbank
London SW1
Dear Confidentialers,
Another day, another interview on Zimbabwe. The BBC's excellent Sheena McDonald is quizzing four of us - two journalists and two opposition activists - about what happens next. President Mugabe's re...
Patrick Smith
Place de l'Indépendance
Avenue de Mali
Bamako
Mali
Dear Confidentialers
It is hard to get away from Ghana's founding father, Kwame Nkrumah, this month. Here in the centre of Bamako, a statue of the kente-clad Nkrumah bestrides the grand square like a C...
Patrick Smith
Independence Square
Accra
Ghana
Dear Africa Confidentialers
I've just walked across Accra's Independence Square, which was today the focal point of Ghana's celebrations of 50 years of Independence. The Square sits between the lapping waves of the Atlant...
Patrick Smith
Rue de la Verrerie
Paris 75004
Dear Africa Confidentialers,
This week's letter strikes a Francophone note. Last week France's President Jacques Chirac welcomed more than 30 African leaders to Cannes for the France-Africa summit and the 2 March edition o...
Patrick Smith
Voting was colourful in the city of Thies, 70 km to the east of Dakar and Senegal's second most populous city. Men and women, young and old, turned out after mosque prayers in their hundreds at Kaba Sall primary school to exercise their right at the ballo...
Patrick Smith
Farringdon Road,
London EC1
Dear Confidentialers,
One of those historical weeks in Africa has just gone by: summits and summitry in Addis Ababa, political intrigue unravels in Abuja, a peacekeeping force is readied for Mogadishu, China's President Hu Ji...